As the number of mobile devices has increased, so has the demand for data transfer utilizing these mobile devices. This has been highlighted by the emergence of data transfer protocols such as the wireless application protocol (WAP), the General Packet Radio System (GPRS), and other next generation cellular technologies that allow, for example, the access of remote files from a suitably equipped mobile telephone handset.
A problem associated with large scale data transfer over current cellular systems is that in many instances the user is not within the range of a high-speed network, and will have to transfer the file utilizing a more-commonly-available low-speed network. A further implication of this low data transfer rate is increased costs to users as most are billed by their service provider on a time or quantity of data basis. Clearly low data transfer rates will increase data acquisition times and therefore may increase the cost to the user.
An attempt to deal with the above-mentioned problem is described in European Patent EP 1207656A2, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DATA TRANSFER, by McDonnell et al. As described in the McDonnell patent, when a large file is to be transferred to a user, the user receives a “data is waiting” message. Upon receipt of the “data is waiting” message a user of the mobile device decides whether they wish to receive the data from the network via the low bandwidth connection, or wait until a high-bandwidth connection is available. If the user wishes to wait, nothing is sent to the user. When the user encounters a high-bandwidth connection, the user then requests the file to be transferred.
While the above procedure does ensure that no large file is transferred utilizing the low-speed network, shortcomings exist in that oftentimes a user does not know the contents of the file that is to be transferred to the user, and cannot make an adequate determination whether they want to receive the file. Additionally, in many instance the user would chose to download the file if an alternate, smaller size file was available. Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for data transfer within a communication system that prevents large files from being transferred over low-speed links, yet better informs a user of the content of a large file to be transferred.